Weight Reduction

[Brian C]

Just as a funny story although it wasn't funny then. When i was with a now defunct team we had an engineer who insisted we had to use 1/4 in thick aluminum for our sides. This was several years ago when you could only weight 130 with your battery

Team 190 had their robot a couple of years back where pretty much the entire chassis was made of Lexan.

You can do some pretty cool stuff with Lexan........

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by Brian C

You can do some pretty cool stuff with Lexan........

Yes, you can! Just keep in mind that the modulus of elasticity is around 30 times less than aluminum, which means you have to have a good design to keep deflection down, but it also allows you to have that deflection if you need it for your design.

[Hieb]

Originally Posted by GaryV1188

Whatever you do, don't drill speed holes in the pneumatics system.

Why not? Then you would save the weight of the metal AND the air.

[Cowmankoza]

very true, we chopped off our shooter and ball gathering device, granted our robot was roughly 60 pounds overweight if I'm not mistaken. The tough part was redesigning the robot to become a dumper on practice day at UCF, good time, good times.

[robotguru1717]

Originally Posted by squirrel

to avoid this?

i admit it! thats what TOTALLY happened to us last year. It ws our rookie year. This year we are trying to avoid it with what i said earlier! lol.

[raymaniac]

After reading this thread I have an inexplicable desire for some swiss cheese.

I wonder why.

[FourPenguins]

Originally Posted by Brian C

You can do some pretty cool stuff with Lexan........

Words of warning:
Two years ago, MORT built the infamous plastic fantastic end effector out of lexan, acrylic, and polyurethane foam. It was about 30 lbs over weight. The moral: light materials are not a cure-all. If the engineering is flawed, the material won't save you.

Oh yeah. And don't forget that Lexan doesn't break, but it flexes easily, so don't use it for anything that needs to be rigid.

[MrForbes]

Originally Posted by robotguru1717

i admit it! thats what TOTALLY happened to us last year. It ws our rookie year. This year we are trying to avoid it with what i said earlier! lol.

yeah, we were in the pits next to you in Phoenix and at Atlanta, I was impressed with your team's ability to deal with some serious challenges.

[maltz1881]

I love Lexan and HDPE. That stuff is great lightweight strong and it bounces back into place. It can also be welded. Every year I purchase sheets of this stuff store it outside then cut off a chunk of it when needed